Linda Sánchez

Linda Sánchez is a Democrat and former labor lawyer who has served in the U.S. House since 2002, representing the 38th District since 2013, and is running in the redrawn 41st District. She sits on the Ways and Means Committee, where she is the ranking member of the Trade Subcommittee. According to her campaign, she is running on lowering costs.[1][2][3]

Sánchez was born in Orange, California, in 1969, the sixth of seven children of immigrant parents from Mexico; according to her official biography, her father was an industrial machinist and mechanic and her mother an elementary school teacher.[1][2] She earned a bachelor's degree in Spanish literature from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1991 and a law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1995, working as a bilingual aide and ESL instructor while in school.[1][2]

Sánchez practiced appellate, civil rights and employment law, then worked as a compliance officer for IBEW Local 441 and the National Electrical Contractors Association. In 2000 she was elected executive director of the Orange County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO.[1][2] In 2002, at age 34, she was elected to the U.S. House from a new district created after the 2000 Census, becoming the first woman IBEW member elected to Congress; her sister Loretta Sánchez served in the House from 1997 to 2017.[1] She represented the old 39th District from 2003, won re-election in 2012 in the 38th District after redistricting, and most recently represented the 38th.[2][1]

Sánchez serves on the Ways and Means Committee, having been the first Latina on both Ways and Means and the Judiciary Committee, and since 2024 she has been ranking member of its Trade Subcommittee. She also served on the Select Committee on Benghazi from 2014 to 2016.[1] Her official biography credits her with introducing the Gender Equity in Health Premiums Act in 2009, which became part of the Affordable Care Act, and with 2016 bipartisan legislation on tax deductions for caregivers of relatives.[1] The biography also says she is the mother of a son, Joaquín, born in 2009, and one of the few women to play in the Congressional Baseball Game.[1] Following California's 2025 redistricting under Proposition 50, she is running in the newly drawn 41st District in the November 3, 2026 general election.[2][3]

Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.